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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549558">Lessons Exquisitely Crafted</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/averita/pseuds/averita'>averita</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Tagged with Zelda/Blackwood bc it's TECHNICALLY in here but nope, five things</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 15:54:04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,135</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/averita/pseuds/averita</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>If it's true that love is blind - well, Zelda loves better than them all.</i>
</p><p>Or, five times Zelda Spellman was not in love and one time she was.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sabrina Spellman &amp; Zelda Spellman, Zelda Spellman/Faustus Blackwood, Zelda Spellman/Mambo Marie LaFleur, Zelda Spellman/Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>87</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lessons Exquisitely Crafted</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written as a Tumblr prompt for <a href="https://concreteangel1221.tumblr.com/">concreteangel1221</a>. Title from "Eric's Song" by Vienna Teng.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b>One.</b> </p><p>The Dark Lord is Zelda’s world, and what a magnificent world it is. He accompanies her everywhere she goes, from the sleepy grey of Greendale and the misty moors of her ancestors to the bright new lights of India, the brilliant fashions of France. She endures the sticky heat of island nations whose prayers are unfamiliar, and it’s not such a trial, really, to learn new ways to worship Him.</p><p>He is with her, always. He is her solace when her parents die, when Edward vanishes for the first and then the last time; He is her strength when Hilda discovers that she has wings of her own, and tentatively starts to soar. He is her first love, her true love, and He will never let her down.</p><p>And if it’s true that love is blind - well, Zelda loves better than them all. </p><p><b>Two</b>.   </p><p>It’s a fleeting affair - barely sixty years, off and on - but a reliable one while it lasts, and Zelda is sorry to end it.</p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p>“I could stay here,” he tries as a last resort; Zelda, in turns, tries <i>not</i> to roll her eyes. It’s a new tactic on his part, now that he’s finally accepted that her place is in Greendale; the fact that he’d asked her to leave at all had shown how little he knows her. To leave now is unthinkable - Edward is High Priest, Zelda herself is teaching at the Academy, and - no. No, this is the time to uphold the honor of the Spellman name, and she’d be loathe to take any other.</p><p>This man had many things to offer but never a name worth considering, or meaningful power of any kind. It’s a shame, Zelda thinks when she sends him away, that he had to go and complicate a good thing. <i>Love</i> - such a pedestrian complication. Still, he’ll be easy enough to replace. </p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p>
  <b>Three.</b>
</p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p> Zelda can’t fault Lilith’s choice of body; Mary Wardwell cuts a fine figure indeed. Gaudy, to be sure, with her tight dresses and dramatic hair, but Zelda’s always had an appreciation for the more dramatic things in life.</p><p>She’s always had an appreciation for <i>Lilith</i>, for that matter, and that appreciation takes on new forms altogether at the sight of her: here, backlit by the roaring fireplace in Zelda’s sitting room, long fingers teasing the stem of a wineglass as the Spellmans ready themselves for battle. </p><p>“Did you need something?” Lilith asks mildly, and it takes Zelda a moment to realize she’s speaking to <i>her</i>; a second longer to realize it’s because she’s staring. </p><p>Zelda takes a rough drag from her cigarette, releases the smoke in a shaky exhale. “Not at all,” she says stiffly, and Lilith lifts a skeptical eyebrow. </p><p><i>This is ridiculous</i>, Zelda chastises herself, crossing the room to join Ambrose and to put distance between herself and the deity currently examining the pattern of Zelda’s sofa. Now is hardly the time to have her head turned by a pretty face, no matter what’s under it. </p><p>Still, Zelda can’t help but think that she’d love to at least find out what’s under the <i>dress</i>. </p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p><b>Four.</b> 
 <b></b> </p><p>It’s a familiar game she plays with Faustus, and she’s sure-footed even as the stakes grow higher than ever before. Whatever Sabrina might think - or say, for that matter, often and loudly - it is no small thing to be the wife of a High Priest, and is the most direct route to the power that has always lurked just out of Zelda’s grasp. It had never burned so brightly as when Edward led the Church of Night with Faustus at his right hand and Zelda herself at his left, and she remembers those days with a simple and fierce fondness - the heated debates, the conviction of each action, and the the heady feeling that her words, her very presence, <i>mattered.</i></p><p>That feeling - surely that’s worth a wedding, even if she’s starting to suspect that Faustus isn’t quite the man she’d known then. Surely she’ll gain more than she’ll give up. And as the day draws nearer, as the prospect becomes less about power and more about what protection she can extend her family -</p><p>Her family, who keep talking about love - <i>love</i>, like they know anything at all about it. Like they have any idea <i>what</i> lengths Zelda will go to for the love of them. </p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p><b>Five.</b> 
 <b></b> </p><p>Marie is gentle in a way that Zelda hasn’t known before - in a way that would have irked her, truth be told, not so long ago. Lemongrass and honey, short nails that dig into Zelda’s back but don’t break the skin. Kisses that leave Zelda hot and trembling, but never burn.</p><p>Marie takes her hand; Zelda doesn’t protest. When they dance, it’s to a song that Zelda’s never heard, and she <i>hears</i> it - this song, and no other. </p><p>It’s not love, not yet, but it could be. </p><p>
  <b></b>
</p><p><b>+ One.</b> 
 <b></b> </p><p>There’s no guide book for a half-human pregnancy, and they’re all on high alert the moment Diana passes the 40 week threshold. They spend the next six weeks in anxious anticipation, though none so much as Diana, who has been on bedrest for months now, and whose labor is more punishing than any Zelda has witnessed.</p><p>She can’t deny a certain admiration for the mortal woman, whose shrieks have long turned hoarse and who clings to Edward like he’s the only thing keeping her tethered to this realm. Zelda wipes her brow, smoothes back the tendrils of hair that stick to her forehead. </p><p>“Almost there,” Hilda says encouragingly, “you’re nearly there, love - yes, just like that -”</p><p>The woods are quiet but for Diana, who howls like she, too, was born here - </p><p>- and then a cry, shaky and startled, a sweeter sound than Zelda has ever known. </p><p>“Take her,” Hilda is saying, and it takes Zelda a moment to realize she’s being addressed. There’s a tightness in her sister’s voice that cuts through the haze of disbelief, the strange feeling that it’s <i>her</i> life that’s suddenly been changed irrevocably and not her brother’s - she moves down to where Hilda kneels, takes in the blood - <i>too much</i> - and looks up to see Edward still holding Diana’s hand, which is growing limp in his grasp - </p><p>Zelda gasps at the sudden slick weight of her niece, deposited unceremoniously into her arms as Hilda begins chanting under her breath, her entire focus back on their sister-in-law.</p><p>The babe continues to cry and Zelda stares, enraptured, at the unprecedented creature in her arms. </p><p>“Oh,” she says quietly, and again, “<i>Oh.</i>  ”</p><p>It’s as natural and wild as the forest around them, this feeling - untamed and powerful beyond anything that Zelda has ever known, and she can’t contain it any more than she could contain the ocean whose salt rings their circle, or the moon, shining above them.</p>
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